In 1964 Berne published Games People Play which, despite having been written for a professional readership, became an enormous bestseller and made Berne famous. The book presented clear, everyday examples of the way in which human beings get caught up in the games they play. Berne gave these games memorable titles such as "Now I've got you, you son of a bitch," "Wooden leg," "Yes, but...," and "Let's you and him fight."
In Berne's explanation of transaction as games, when the transaction is a zero-sum game, e.g. one must win at the other's expense, the person who benefits from a transaction (wins the game) is referred to as White, and the victim is referred to as Black, corresponding to the often likely outcome of a chess game.
Some of this terminology became a part of popular American vocabulary.
Read more about this topic: Eric Berne
Famous quotes containing the words games, people and/or play:
“As long as lightly all their livelong sessions,
Like a yardful of schoolboys out at recess
Before their plays and games were organized,
They yelling mix tag, hide-and-seek, hopscotch,
And leapfrog in each other’s way all’s well.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“There are times when they seem so small! And then again, although they never seem large, there is a vastness behind them, a past of indefinite complexity and marvel, an amazing power of absorbing and assimilating, which forces one to suspect some power in the race so different from our own that one cannot understand that power. And ... whatever doubts or vexations one has in Japan, it is only necessary to ask oneself: “Well, who are the best people to live with?””
—Lafcadio Hearn (1850–1904)
“The indispensable ingredient of any game worth its salt is that the children themselves play it and, if not its sole authors, share in its creation. Watching TV’s ersatz battles is not the same thing at all. Children act out their emotions, they don’t talk them out and they don’t watch them out. Their imagination and their muscles need each other.”
—Leontine Young (20th century)